Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I started this on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed blogging from that book on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. Since then, I have begun adding material from his Bible commentaries. I also re-blog many of the old posts.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Paul Would Die for His People

QUESTION: Explain Rom. 9:3, "For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen, etc.

ANSWER:  As Christ on the cross was regarded by men as accursed or separated from God in making the atonement, so Paul could, if it were possible, take Christ's place, or make another atonement on the top of Christ's atonement to save the Hebrew people. As dying for one condemned to be executed is the highest possible expression of love, so Paul's love for his race would prompt him to submit to an ignominious, judicial death if that would save his "kinsmen according to the flesh" from the doom of eternal punishment. A present day Arab expresses his love for another by saying, "Let my life be a ransom for thee." The Oriental mind is full of the solemn thought of substitutive suffering.

Steele's Answers p. 141.

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